For many years, the law enforcement industry has utilized a variety of less than lethal weapons. The need to stop a violent threat without the necessity of fatally injuring a suspect with a firearm is always desirable.
Police batons have been an effective less lethal option that has been used in the law enforcement industry for many decades. Police batons are typically part of an officer's duty belt which carries a wide variety of duty gear including, but not limited to a hand gun, ammo clips, hand cuffs, police radios, flashlights, pepper spray, Tasers®, etc.
With the evolution of the lighting industry in the past decade, many companies have developed smaller plastic flashlights to gain space and/or reduce weight on an officer's duty belt. Other companies have attempted to inherently combine flashlights with firearms, Tasers®, and more typically, batons or other impact weapon systems. Unfortunately, in the process, either the effectiveness of the impact weapon, or the flashlight, gets compromised in the process. In particular, incorporating a flashlight into an impact weapon has brought on a new set of challenges to flashlights. These challenges include the usability and durability to any flashlight system.
Representatively, when a typical flashlight is incorporated into an impact weapon, flashlights don't have the necessary durability to continue to function as a standalone flashlight, and have a tendency to break or fail. This is because the use of an impact weapon generates “impact” which places unusual wear on a flashlight with a glass or crystal bulb or lens.
In addition, flashlights with a typical wafer type, or even a single “AA” type, battery can have limitations with respect to their illumination capability and duration of use.
Also, flashlights with a typical constant “on” or “off” switch typically drain a battery more quickly. Though some baton manufacturers have added flashlights to their batons, the attempt to use a flashlight with a wafer or single “AA” type battery as a distracting or diversionary light only compromises the flashlight's power and ability to be bright enough to be an effective diversionary light source. This can further compromise officer safety when a flashlight is used for general illumination purposes and as a potential diversionary device alike, because of the accelerated drop in illumination from an insufficient battery source. Therefore, a lighting system that is used as a diversionary device requires sufficient brightness to be effective but will not have the sustainability to operate as an effective flashlight. Conversely, a flashlight that requires a lower lumen output to be an effective, durable, and sustainable illuminating tool cannot have the ability or lumen rating to be an effective diversionary device, and may compromise officer safety.
Furthermore, the use of positional constant “on” or “off” switches that are incorporated into flashlights on impact weapons require the officer, under the immediate physical stress of a situation, to have one more item to consider along with all other elements of a heightened scenario.